Lobe den Herren den mächtigen Konig der Ehren. J. Neander. [Thanksgiving.] A magnificent hymn of praise to God, perhaps the finest production of its author, and of the first rank in its class. It is founded on Psalms ciii., 1-6, and Psalms cl. First published in his Glaub- und Liebesübung: auffgemuntert durch einfältige Bundes Lieder und Danck-Psalmen, Bremen, 1680, p. 47, in 5 stanzas of 5 lines, Repeated in Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch 1704, and in most subsequent collections, as recently in the Unverfälscher Liedersegen, 1851, No. 687.
It was the favourite hymn of Friedrich Wilhelm III. of Prussia, and Lauxmann, in Koch, viii. 340, relates how he was affected by hearing it sung while in a boat in the mines at Waldenburg in 1800. With this hymn the Prussian War Minister, Albrecht von Roon, celebrated his Jubilee of service, near Paris, January 9, 1871. The splendid chorale, given in the Chorale Book for England, appeared in the Stralsund Gesang-Buch, 1665 (set to the hymn "Hast du denn Liebster dein Angesicht gäntzlich verborgen," see Dr. J. Zahn's Psalter und Harfe, 1886, No. 335), was adapted by Neander, and repeated in Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch, 1704, and most later books.
Translations in common use:—
1. To God Almighty be praises and thanks from all living. A free translation of stanzas i., ii., v., as No. 58 in the Dalston Hospital Hymn Book, 1848.
2. Praise ye Jehovah! with anthems of praise come before Him. In 4 stanzas (marked as tr. from Neander, but really taking very little either from his language or his ideas), as No. 17 in the American Lutheran General Synod's Hymn Book, 1850-52.
[Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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